When the Bulls faced the Blazers on Saturday night at the UC, just like any time they face Portland, memories come rushing back. Of course, we all immediately think about the 92 Finals. The shrug was epic. The whole Jordan vs Drexler thing. The Game 6 comeback at the Chicago Stadium that I was in attendance for! The repeat title. The celebration that ensued that summer in Chicago for that first championship won IN Chicago in… forever. Yeah, hard NOT to think about 1992 when I see the Bulls Blazers matchup, that was made into a video game for Sega I believe. How about we dig a little deeper in the Bulls Blazers history?
The LandofBasketball.com is a good site for that. There are many times where I’ve wanted to search the history of a matchup; they always pop up first. It was no different this time around. They have played 131 times against each other in the regular season. The Blazers actually lead the series 67 to 64. As I looked over the history, a couple games jumped out. The first one was March 16, 1984. The reason it jumped out was because it was a 156-155 Bulls win in Portland in 4 OT; it also jumped out because this was the last matchup pre-Jordan. Who scored all those points then? Of course for box scores of old games, the go to is basketballreference.com; love that site too. Quintin Dailey lead the Bulls with 33 that night. There were 7 Bulls in double figures, including Orlando Woolridge and Dave Corzine. That Bulls team would finish with a 27-55 record which is important because that would lead to the Bulls getting the #3 pick for the 1984 draft… On the other side of the box score, the Blazer with 41 points was… NOT Clyde Drexler; he actually scored 14 points off the bench. It was the brother of a famous Bull… Yeah, Jim Paxson; I would have never guessed that. Pretty cool. Speaking of Drexler… seeing Damian Lillard do his thing on Saturday night at the UC, one of my favorite current players in the NBA, I wonder if he has passed him for greatest Trailblazer of all time. Of course you can’t forget about the 1977 NBA title that Portland won, and their MVP Bill Walton in that conversation. I think those are the top 3 if anything…
There is no disputing the top Bull of all time, and the 2nd game that I wanted to dig deep into was the next game in the history of this matchup, the first game for MJ vs the Blazers. This time it was in Portland again; this time it was a 141-131 loss. Rookie MJ lead the Bulls with 30 points, including 10 for 10 from the free throw line. Drexler, still coming off the bench, scored 19, while Jim Paxson lead the scoring again with 31; Kiki Vandeweghe added 30. Oh yeah, there was that other guy, Sam Bowie, who scored 11 points in the first meeting of the #2 and #3 draft picks that year. I had to pull up the highlights of this game, and sure enough, just like pretty much every other MJ game, there was a fabulous move. MJ did a “now you see me, now you don’t” reverse layup; it was beautiful. He also just missed another, but followed it up with a dunk; he had 2 nice blocks too. It’s fun to see MJ as a pup out there already doing his thing.
The Bulls actually did their thing on Saturday night; they actually turned the tables this evening, and made a big comeback to defeat the Blazers in the latest chapter in this matchup. It was great to see. They’ll host the Spurs on Monday at the UC; shall we look at that history? Go Bulls!!!
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